How Much the World’s Biggest Companies Spend on Their Logos

Whether it’s the little blue bird or those signature golden arches, we all can pinpoint our favorite brands by their classic logos. For companies, creating a distinctive and memorable logo is vital to a successful marketing campaign. Sometimes, a logo can evolve overnight, and other times it can take weeks and even months to establish such a classic image. Too simple or too complex of an image just won’t do the trick.

So have you ever wondered, “How long did it take the creators of Google to come up with their logo?” You have to stop and think about the type of font, color, size, etc. Therefore, Business Insider tracked down the list from Stock Logos that revealed how much America’s favorite companies spent creating their logos.

From Coca-Cola to the 2012 London Olympics, see how much these companies spent on designing their classic logo. You’ll be surprised to see how sometimes, the best things in life are free.

Coca-Cola: $0
The company’s bookkeeper and founder’s partner, Frank M. Robinson, designed this famous logo over a century ago in 1886. Apparently, Robinson figured that the two Cs from the name would make a huge impact in advertising. In addition, during a time where exquisite penmanship was a strong characteristic, Robinson played around with different scripts in order to find the perfect one that still appears today.

Google: $0
The most frequently used search engine’s logo took a few twists and turns over the years with fixing up its image, but along with Coca-Cola, this design was created without any expense. It was created in 1998 by its co-founder Sergey Brin on a free graphics program called GIMP. Then graphic designer Ruth Kedar, friend of the founders, helped with finishing touches.

Twitter: $15
This little blue bird didn’t cost much, but there was some negotiation along the way. The company bought the rights for the “Twitter bird” for just $15 on iStockphoto. The original artist, Simon Oxley, received an incredibly low $6 for his work, without any credit. Nonetheless, this friendly figure has gone through several edits throughout the years.

Nike: $35
The co-founder of Nike, Phil Knight, also put forth some cash to own the famous swoosh logo. Knight purchased the design from a graphic design student, Carolyn Davidson, at Portland State University in 1971. When Knight overheard the student struggling to afford oil paints, he offered her $2/hour to complete charts, graphs, and inevitably a logo for the company.

Enron: $33,000
Paul Rand, known as a famous graphic designer, was paid $33,000 to create this logo in the 90s. Before Rand passed away in 1996, he designed logos for famous companies such as ABC, IBM, UPS, NeXT, and Westinghouse.

NeXT: $100,000
Rand was also the face behind this classic logo. It was in 1986 that Rand designed the NeXT logo for former Apple CEO Steve Jobs for $100,000, a nice raise compared to his contribution to Enron.

London 2012 Olympics: $625,000 (£400,000)
As the most recent logo out of the bunch, it was possibly the most controversial of them all as well. Wolff Olins, a bran consultancy based in London, New York City, and Dubai, designed the logo in 2007. However, it was critiqued for a long time for either being too messy or looking like a risque Lisa Simpson.

Pepsi: $1 million
The most recent change to Pepsi’s logo cost a hefty $1 million for Arnell Group to redesign back in 2008. A leaked 27-page document titled “Breathtaking” detailed the methodology behind Arnell Group’s modern new design innovations.

BBC: $1.8 million
British Broadcasting Company decided to redesign its logo in 1997, switching from slanted fonts and colorful accents to a more basic approach. As of now, the company is content with the clean black boxes and white lettering to represent the largest broadcasting organization in the world.

BP: $211 million
BP paid the big kahuna price tag. The popular oil and gas company went all out for its logo design in 2008, working with ad agency Ogilvy & Mather. Both companies devised a plan to change the logo, tagline, and image in 2001 in order to establish faith with its customers and “inspire a campaign that gave voice to people’s concerns.” However, this idea was developed before the major oil spill, which later gave BP other image problems to work on.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Comcast.